Another Tombkeeper
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [AU] Odion wished to protect his brother from a destiny of darkness. He became the tombkeeper, but Marik still fell to his darker half, and now only the Pharaoh can save him


**A/N:** Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Round 3 – "Namelessshipping", Yami Yugi/Rishid(Odion). Going with a what-if scenario here…and Odion wound up completely taking over. Whoops?

* * *

Ishizu was breathing fast and her hands were shaking, but Odion found he was a painfully calm glow in the darkness. Maybe it was because what he was saving was worth the sacrifice to be made: he knew Marik's fear and distaste for the role of the tomb keeper, and there was no need for him to undergo such a burden when his older brother was more than willing to take on the task. And Odion was. To him it was more than an honour, an honour his mother – the woman who had cared for him like a son in all but blood – had bestowed upon him with her permission. It was also more than a shame – the shame his father felt.

It was for Marik, and to save him from the fate that lay ahead.

**Another Tombkeeper**

Marik had turned quiet. At first, after the ritual, it was just anger: plain anger for Odion taking on his destiny and the pain and restrictions that awaited. But it meant Marik was free: free to roam the world to his heart's content, to sit beneath the sun instead of wasting away under the ground. And yet he seemed even more confined than before, back dropped against that freedom. As if the freedom was more confining than the life of waiting within the shadows.

Before, Marik simply could not wait. So often, he'd snuck into the marketplace above the ground. Sometimes on his own, so Ishizu would chase after him and Odion would distract their father until the truth came out and both boys were whipped for their misdeeds and Ishizu was scolded until fled to her room in tears. And she was a strong woman, Ishizu. She'd seen the death of countless people in an equal amount of gruesome ways in her dreams, and rarely did a whimper escape her mouth. But their father – the man that had sired Ishizu and Marik and raised him, however reluctantly – was a fierce man, who instilled fear into each of their bones.

And yet Marik would disobey, and they would find themselves following him. Sometimes, Marik would convince them outright. Take Ishizu or himself to the surface, beg the other to cover their tracks. Show them the attractions of the Nile and its vibrant marketplace. Explain his dreams – dreams his father would never approve of.

But now that he had the chance to follow those dreams, he didn't. He stayed inside, even if their father would no longer say otherwise. Even if he didn't have to be the tombkeeper anymore – that role he'd hated, he'd never wanted. Odion was that now, and Odion had wanted to spare Marik as much as he'd wanted to belong to that family. He'd done both. But Marik didn't seem happy.

**.**

'I fear for Marik,' Ishizu whispered to him, when they walked above the ground – because their father was dead and his teachings with him, and Ishizu's dreams were calling her out of their shadows and Odion trusted to them. 'That world in the darkness is not for him, but he clings to it unnaturally.'

Odion froze. Their talks had always drifted between Ishizu's dreams and Marik's newfound solitude, but Ishizu had not been so frank in recent times. 'Have you seen something?' he asked urgently, tightening the grip on his cloak and feeling its coarse fabric rub through the shirt on his back. The starless night sky hid them from sight, but going outside always made him anxious. Before, it was his status as an orphan, afraid he'd be abandoned to the desert wild if he stayed too long. Now it was the weight of what he carried upon his back: the knowledge of what it could do in the wrong hands – and he knew those wrong hands existed, because Ishizu saw them in her dreams and her dreams were always true.

Odion had enough proof of that, even though he held on to hope for those things she could not see. Though sometimes, like that walk in the dark as they talk about their brother, Odion thinks Ishizu sees more than she tells.

Ishizu was shaking her head, the white fabric covering her hair swaying gently and being the only source of sound in the cold desert night save their breathing and beating hearts. 'Nothing,' she whispered thereafter, the cold masking her voice as well as the darkness masked her expression. 'But he is our brother and I feel this. Surely you feel it too.'

Odion did, but it had been five years since his initiation and the start of Marik's change, and he couldn't see what had changed.

**.**

Ishizu awoke him quite suddenly one night, and Marik too, and the three of them huddled in Odion's bed chambers listening to Ishizu's excited babble. The eloquence that had been engraved into her had fled; she sounded more like an excited child in the marketplace than the daughter of a tombkeeper – but as Odion focused on her words and processed them, he realised she had a _reason_ to be excited.

The Nameless Pharaoh the Ishtar family had waited for for so many generations had finally reappeared. Ishizu's eyes were glowing in the flickering torchlight; her face was flushed with excitement. Odion feels fear not unlike those times in his youth where abandonment was a threat that lurked overhead. The time of the tombkeepers had come, and it was to a boy not born into that line.

He'd taken Marik's birthright, as much as Marik hadn't wanted it. But when Odion turned to look at his adopted brother, Marik was smiling, as enthusiastic as his sister and looking happier than he had in years.

Ishizu met his eyes as well and started, then shook her head and laughed it off. 'Our time has come,' she breathed thereafter. 'The time of the tombkeepers has come.'

**.**

Ishizu insisted on accompanying Odion, for reasons the latter didn't understand but didn't object to. He spoke little Japanese, and Marik even less so. They'd been taught the bare minimum, as they'd been taught in regards to many other languages. Marik had been less diligent in his studies.

But Ishizu was more fluent. She had dealings with people from other countries, and a more restricted education. It had been impossible for her to become a tombkeeper after all, as a woman. So she had sought other paths. Paths that led here to walls and the relics they'd grown aside, and yet at the same time the relics she carried around the world weren't those treasures, but other trifle things they could discard.

Except now she was carrying some of the more valuable tablets: the ones that told of the battle between the high priest and the Nameless Pharaoh whose tomb they were sworn to protect. She claimed it to be a part of the chain of events leading to the end of their life mission, but not how. And she left his side almost the moment they arrived in Domino City, claiming business of her own.

So Odion wondered alone, waiting and searching for nothing. Because he could feel nothing in that great city: no great power, no spirit so mighty it could crush the world in his fist. He felt nothing, and he wondered how he was to find this Nameless Pharaoh to deliver the message he bore.

The family lore simply claimed the Pharaoh would reveal himself before the tombkeeper after his awakening. Which left their meeting up to chance and destiny's hand.

**.**

Marik had followed them. Had plotted without them, _against_ them even – though it seemed as though Ishizu had expected it. Her disappointment showed on her face; her frustration – evidentially, she had seen the truth and tried to make it otherwise. Yet she had failed. They'd been trusted with more than the secret of the Pharaoh's tomb, Odion knew. They'd been entrusted with the location of the God cards as well – and now Marik had stolen away with two of them, planning something outside their control.

'The cards will reach the hands of the Pharaoh,' Ishizu soothed, though she was uncomfortable with the idea. Restless. They were supposed to hand them to the Pharaoh, as was his right. It had become another thing they would have to trust to fate, or Ishizu's unchanging visions. 'I have seen it, but not without trials. And this…' She clutched the final God card in a fist that shook as fiercely as it had during his initiation. 'I have seen this in the hands of another man.'

She feared insulting him, he knew, but it was worry that was on the forefront of his mind. 'What man?' he asked. 'To what end?'

'Seto Kaiba,' was the reply, 'to call the Pharaoh forth, for their rivalry goes back to the time of his reign. He is the reincarnation of the High Priest who fought against him.'

That did not soothe Odion, for the Priest was known as a traitor to his Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba had no good character to speak of, or so they knew.

But Odion did not want the God card; he was the tombkeeper but not an Ishtar. He had not been chosen by the gods to wield their cards.

Marik had, but Odion was beyond the time he could be jealous of his brother. It was worry and nothing more that consumed him.

**.**

'You should hate him, you know. You took his destiny for him so he would not suffer, and yet he still rampages like a spoilt child.'

Odion blinked in the darkness. 'Who are you?' he demanded of the voice. 'What black magic have you used to enter my dreams?'

'I am a stator of the truth,' the voice replied, calm and even to the other's start. 'By Ra, I only voice what lies within your heart.'

'Treacherous snake,' Odion hissed to the night, sitting up and groping for a body to fit the voice. 'Do not slight the name of my brother or my honour. Your words are lies.'

'Are they?' The voice sounds coy, amused. 'Tell me truthfully you have not felt such emotions within your chest.'

'Long ago,' Odion replied, and it was the truth. 'But I have consolidated them. He is my brother, and I love him more than needless jealousy.'

'Wise words.' Now it is a sneer. 'And your sister who speaks the future. What of her?'

'What of her?' Odion found nothing in the darkness, no matter how he searched.

'Can you trust her visions…or that she tells you the truth in them?'

He awoke before a reply could make it to his lips, and the echo of that voice was gone.

**.**

Ishizu's vision did not come true. She had said she saw Obelisk coming back to her, but it did not. Seto Kaiba defeated her, and she had failed to reach Marik.

But Odion learnt something in that duel. Not that Ishizu's power was infallible; he knew her power, and its source. Not that the tales of her dreams were incomplete; he'd suspected that, but Ishizu was a sister to him and he trusted her. Perhaps it was naïve, but a single voice a single night was not enough to shake that confidence.

No. What he'd found was Marik, lurking behind the hood of a man in whose hands lay another of the seven Millenium items.

He'd seen most of them by that point: the young boy with the puzzle, the slightly older and taller one with the ring, Ishizu's necklace and the rod that now proved itself to be in Marik's hands. Odion saw too the Marik he'd once known inside, when his eyes had sought out the face under the hood. It was a flash, a moment, and then it was gone again, replaced with something hard and cold and vengeful.

Odion prayed the Pharaoh would be quick to reveal himself. He did not wish to hurt Marik, but the Marik who'd looked back at him with those cold eyes seemed to think otherwise. And their destiny was afoot.

**.**

Odion had failed. He had not reached the Pharaoh; he'd fallen to Marik. Fate had pitted them together in a showdown in the semi-finals. He'd lost, and he'd paid for his loss with his soul.

His body lay ragged for the world to see. What Marik did with it, he didn't know. He couldn't know, trapped as he was in a realm of endless shadow and despair.

He'd lost. He'd failed the tombkeepers, the family that had taken him in as their own and cast aside tradition for his sake. The mother that had suggested he take on the role. The father that had, eventually, initiated him as his own death approached and Marik hid himself in the catacombs to avoid his destiny. The little boy who'd reached out and called him brother even if they hadn't been related by blood. The woman who'd always been a person of stability in his life, who he could trust infallibly and not suffer for it.

He had failed and Marik's fate to be consumed by darkness had not changed. He wished it had; he could feel less guilty then, in taking his brother's destiny. But it hadn't changed, and he felt only that guilt and shame as the darkness of the shadows swallowed him and his dear brother slipped deeper into the shadows of his own mind.

**.**

The Pharaoh finds him, wandering in the darkness, and it is both a shame and a relief for him. It is a shame because he has to face him in failure, but a relief because he's come, and the failure may yet turn otherwise.

But he is so overcome that, at the beginning, he cannot speak, and the Pharaoh simply waits until he can. 'You have come,' Odion finally says, head bowed.

'Unintentionally,' the Pharaoh responds, which what may be curiosity lacing his tone. 'You are Odion, correct? Ishizu's brother?'

'I am.' And Odion wonders where the conversation is going. What has Ishizu told the Pharaoh?

'I see.' But what the Pharaoh saw, Odion did not know. 'It is the eve of my battle with Marik.'

Odion expects this, though he is still surprised. It means the Pharaoh had slept within Yugi Moto, for it is he who is pitted against the winner of their bout in the final match of the tournament. Though it is inconsequential now, because it is the Pharaoh in spirit, not bound to his human host, who is before him now.

And yet he feels no lingering pain at the cloth that his wrapped around him, as though his back is smooth, free of marks. And he feels something bubble up within him; is this the proof of his fallacy as a tombkeeper, he thinks? To be unable to share the secret with the Pharaoh because it is carried only by his body, not by soul?

'Your sister watches over your body.' Perhaps the Pharaoh understands, or he does not yet know. Odion cannot tell. 'She asks you do not worry on that account…and I ask for your faith in me.' He lowers his eyes, and Odion almost cries out in alarm at the gesture. A Pharoah is lowering his eyes to a mere servant, and an orphan no less…

But in that moment, Odion feels neither orphan nor tombkeeper. He knows little about the Pharaoh and less about his strength. All he saw were two matches: against Ryou Bakura, and Seto Kaiba. But that was enough a witness of his strength. And the sight in front of him was enough a witness of his kindness. If he could not put his faith in such a man to save his dear brother from himself, then who could he put his faith in?

He doesn't remember Ishizu's one failed vision, and that this vision of Ishizu's might fail as well. She has seen the Pharaoh with the three God cards and their family together once more; for both to happen, the Pharaoh must defeat Marik in the final duel.

Odion chooses to put his trust in both of them. Ishizu, he has always put his trust in. This time, he will put his faith in the Pharaoh…and once that has come to pass, the return of his body will allow him to fulfil the destiny he'd taken to try and free his brother from the very curse that now clung to him.


End file.
